Energy-efficient and reliable data gathering using highly stable links in underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) is challenging because of time and location-dependent communication characteristics of the acoustic channel. In this paper, we propose a novel dynamic firefly mating optimization inspired routing scheme called FFRP for the internet of UWSNs-based events monitoring applications. The proposed FFRP scheme during the events data gathering employs a self-learning based dynamic firefly mating optimization intelligence to find the highly stable and reliable routing paths to route packets around connectivity voids and shadow zones in UWSNs. The proposed scheme during conveying information minimizes the high energy consumption and latency issues by balancing the data traffic load evenly in a large-scale network. In additions, the data transmission over highly stable links between acoustic nodes increases the overall packets delivery ratio and network throughput in UWSNs. Several simulation experiments are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme against the existing schemes through NS2 and AquaSim 2.0 in UWSNs. The experimental outcomes show the better performance of the developed protocol in terms of high packets delivery ratio (PDR) and network throughput (NT) with low latency and energy consumption (EC) compared to existing routing protocols in UWSNs.INDEX TERMS Internet of Underwater Things, bio-inspired routing, firefly mating optimization, underwater wireless sensor network, routing protocol.
I. INTRODUCTIONThe oceans contain about 96.5% of all earth water is extremely important for the survivability of human life since it provides nourishment, natural resources, ways of transportation, greater defense margin and several other benefits. However, a vast portion of the oceans around 95% is still unexplored due to the lack of appropriate acoustic communication technologies. Recently, significantThe associate editor coordinating the review of this manuscript and approving it for publication was Ilsun You . advancements in the Internet of underwater things (IoUT) technology have facilitated the exploration process of the oceans by connecting various ubiquitous sensor devices to provide reliable and efficient data collection in UWSNs [1], [2]. The acoustic sensor nodes (ASNs) in underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASNs) have the potentials to monitor real-time underwater events with failure detection and self-organizing capabilities. Therefore, UASNs have received significant attention in a variety of ocean monitoring applications, such as navigation assistance, tactical surveillance, mine recognition, underwater pollution analysis and